


Three days on a drunken sin

by giurochedadomani



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Human!AU: University, Jealousy, M/M, Misunderstandings, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Pre-Slash, Self Confidence Issues, TW: characters having an homophobic family, TW: drug use, tw: overdose, tw: suicide attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:34:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24322855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/giurochedadomani/pseuds/giurochedadomani
Summary: Anthony Crowley went to a party. He doesn’t remember much of it, but waking up in a hospital bed to Ezra’s pitiful eyes is etched on his mind. After a long summer of avoidance, he saves the day and Ezra’s new job at the old Tadfield library.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 22





	Three days on a drunken sin

The blue from the police lights reflects over the Central Tadfield Library sign, old and a tad cracked, making it look as if it were about to fall down on the rests of the storefront. A couple of agents dock down on their way out, as do the handcuffed wannabe robbers they’re pushing.

Crowley kneels, picks up the book, sees again the title — _ bloody Hamlet _ — and snorts. He offers it to Ezra. 

Their hands touch when the other grabs it. Crowley’s just a tad too glad that he doesn’t drop it. 

“That was awfully nice of you”. 

Crowley feels a bit hot around the collar and suspects it might not have everything to do with the pulsing pain of the bruise on his left cheek. He deflects by glaring for good measure at the big, burly detective taking Mrs. Tracy’s statement, but he seems so enthralled as to pay them any attention. 

“Very. Very  _ cool _ ”. 

“Oh, shut it”, he murmures back. 

He gives Ezra a side glance. It’s aiming for a glare and falls miserably short. His stomach does a weird thing when he sees the other’s soft smile as he flips the pages of the book. He feels a little bit dumb and a whole lot ridiculous at how, ugh,  _ mushy _ ‘very. Very cool’ makes him. He misses his glasses, broken in the scuffle Ezra and him had gone into with the robbers. 

He wills his left knee to stop moving. He ends up getting up from the sofa just to stop the nervous taps on the floor. Ezra asks: “How did you know that I was working here?”

Anathema had told him. She had done so subtly at first and with increasingly elaborate threats then to coax him to make amends with Ezra through the whole summer.

( _ Crowley can’t remember anything but the blinding lights of the ambulance, a cacophony of shouts from his parents and Ezra’s pitiful eyes before waking up on the hospital bed _ . 

“ _ Well, you really shouldn’t be here. I mean, given how many other people you have to  _ fraternize _ with— _ ”) __

“I didn’t. I happened to be in the neighbourhood”. It has happened a couple of times before. That is, Crowley going so far as to reach the neighbouring park before bolting on the whole idea. Showing up just as the gang decided to strike the library hasn’t been about pure chance, though. 

“My spidey senses just tingled”. 

“Ah”. Ezra’s soft smile fades down a bit. Crowley feels an inexplicable pang of guilt. “Well. I’m glad about your spider senses. I really don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t show up, my dear. I suppose that I got myself into a very tight spot”. 

Mrs. Tracy laughs. She then shoves a hand over her mouth, appalled. She looks apologetically at the detective, who very chivariously tells her that there’s nothing to apologize for. 

Crowley fixates on how much that makes him gag so he won’t pay attention at how his mind won’t stop echoing ‘my dear’. 

“It’s  _ spidey _ , not  _ spider _ . You  _ know  _ it’s  _ spidey _ ”, he chides him. It doesn’t have any real bite to it, though. He glances again at Ezra and spots that little self satisfied smile that he sports after being annoying on purpose. His heart clenches suddenly at the immensity of the feeling of how much he has missed it. 

“Does pretending to be from two centuries ago still help you around here?”, he asks, as nonchalant as he can manage. He rests his back on the counter. 

“I’ll have you know that Mrs. Tracy appreciates my tastes, as démodé as you may find them”. Ezra replies, petulantly. He purses his lips and adds: “And modernizing doesn’t necessary have to equal obscure  _ comic book knowledge _ , you know?” 

Crowley scoffs. Thinks  _ I’ll give you obscure.  _

Ezra ignores him: “I’ve been keeping myself up to date as of late, if you must know. I—”, he hesitates. Crowley takes on his set shoulders, that proud grin. He thinks about how utterly  _ adorable  _ he looks as he doubles down on his resolve and— 

A phone rings. An 8 bit version of something classical. That’s— Beethoven? 

Crowley fishes the thing out of the floor, vibrating half hidden among books. It looks like an old Blackberry or something equally egregious. He flips it in his hand, spots the cracked screen and… he sees the screen saver, a bad selfie of Ezra kissing some guy’s cheek. 

(“ _ Someone like me? How exactly is someone like me? No,  _ describe it.  _ Do you honestly think that I deserve to get treated— _ ”. 

“ _ I worry about you”.  _

“ _ And now you sound like them. I only asked— At the very least have the guts to tell me that you think that this is a punishment— _ ”. 

“ _ You’re putting words in my mouth that I haven’t said _ ”.

“ _ That’s the problem! You never say anything. So long for that being on your side shit when you won’t stand up when I need someone to do it _ ”)

Crowley doesn’t even move when Ezra, beet red, grabs the phone out of his hand and answers. 

“Hi, I— Yes. Yes. Both of us. I was about to call you to tell you about it, in fact”, he nods to nothing. “Well, Police has been interrogating us up until now. How have you heard about it, anyway? In the—?”, a whisper of something and then: “The  _ what _ !? Yes,  _ yes _ , I swear to— Look, given the circumstances it’s something that I’m able to promise, yes”. 

Crowley just— stays there. With the image of the screen saver seared into his mind. The guy’s tall, dark haired, good looking, all draped in finery. Ezra’s honest to Someone giggling. Crowley feels as if someone has just dropped a bucket of cold water over his shoulders. As if someone has just punched all air out of his lungs. 

“I— yes, the moment I get home”, continues Ezra. He lowers his voice: “Yes, me too”. 

He ends the call. 

One of the agents asks something to Mrs. Tracy and then helps her to close the storefront, hiding the broken glass under the metal sheet. After the creaks stop, Ezra tries a joke, pinpointing the phone: “I figured at some point of another I would have to let go of telegrams”. 

The guy is probably refined and shit. He can picture him, a veritable dandy, dressed like a  _ sir _ and philosophizing about morality while analyzing literary classics. Most likely, his vices limit themselves to cigarettes and the occasional brandy glass at parties. Surely, his police records are stainless. 

He’s truly glad for Ezra. 

Brimming with joy. 

He pinpoints the old mobile: “You’ve nailed down the century, angel. Now all that is left to nail down is the decade”. He puts so much effort into not sounding as hollow as he feels, that he expends a few seconds without realizing exactly what has he called the other and only does so when Ezra looks away. 

Crowley’s stomach sinks to the floor and then lower, a truly stupid, over sensitive move on his part— 

“He’s a— well, a friend”. 

( _ “You haven’t been able to admit that we’re friends. Not once” _

_ Ezra looks away. He ducks his head. His voice wavers when he says—) _

Crowley buries the memory quickly and mercilessly. He was a manipulative asshole that day. Ezra’s not the one to blame for Crowley’s devotion, nor his very private daydreams —so obviously out of touch with reality, given what he is, what tears them apart— about what a friendship might develop into. 

“You don’t owe me any explanation”. 

He tries to swallow the bile down his throat. 

“Crowley, I—”. 

The point is— he didn’t even know that Ezra might, in this world and life, be interested. That there was any potential to explore. That Ezra, well, is interested in guys. A part of him cannot stop ruminating about how it’s his fault. That he’s somehow lacking—  _ he’s always lacking.  _ That he was, well, truly pathetic to even secretly entertain the possibility. 

He stands up and recollocates his jeans, trying not to wince when his bruised hands grab the rough fabric. “I’m going home”. 

Ezra’s face falls. He looks away, frowning a little, pouting, his lower lip trembling slightly. Crowley’s convinced that if Ezra were looking up, his eyes would beautifully shine with unshed tears. He feels as if he has just committed genocide, or kicked an overgrown, blonde puppy with eyes as blue as the sky. He gives in, refrains the urge to sigh and asks: “Do you want a lift?” 

Ezra does a double take. Then, he smiles. And it’s like grabbing a soft blanket and getting near the fireplace on a rainy day and corny shit like that. 

Crowley feels a frustration almost as deep as the warmth in his chest. 

Soon they find themselves in Crowley’s car, with him following Ezra’s directions across town and being just a tad too glad that he doesn’t have to explain why does he know where they are going. 

Wait, _no_. Come back! He just means— Anathema’s new flame lives next door, okay? He’s not a creep.

“So you basically stole a bunch of books”. 

“I didn’t steal anything.  _ I acquired them _ . With hard work”. 

“You’ve just told me that you went into a— well, a sort of manhunt of prophecy books, coercing their previous owners into giving them to you almost for free”. 

“ _ Coerce _ , now that’s a strong word.  _ Suggest _ , if anything.  _ Let it slide— Could you please go slower, my dear! _ ”.

“Manipulated, more likely.  _ Deceived _ ”. 

Ezra shots him a glare, baffled. 

“It’s hardly my fault if they didn’t do the proper research before our negotiations!”

“I don’t know if that would stand in a courtroom”. 

“Well, if you’re just going to ponder the legal ramifications of my job I might just ask you to drop me here and go the rest of the way back on foot”. 

“Now, there’s no need for rush decisions”. 

“Well, you’re the one rushing!”

Crowley smirks, takes a turn left a little to quickly to make it perfectly legal and tries hard not to laugh at how Ezra squirms.  “I’m just— admiring the skill where it’s due”, he says, after a moment of silence. “It must have been very difficult to get the opportunity to negotiate with those antique dealers. To prepare a convincing speech that fit every occasion”. 

“If that’s sarcasm, I swear, my dear—”

“Oh, gosh,  _ no _ . I’ve seen you in action. I don’t doubt for a moment that you can be _pretty persuasive_ ”. 

( _ “So, what am I supposed to tell them? ‘Oh, no, I’m sorry, but I won’t make it, you guys, I’ve plans of spending all night long curing the boredom of this blondie, you see’. Wait a minute, I’m  _ so  _ definitely texting them that”.  _

_ “Crowley! You’re making me look like a wanton thing”.  _

_ “Are you blond? Check. Did you convince me that spending the night here was way more interesting than putting up with Bee and their friends? Also check. Did you do so because you’re bored as hell? Ladies and gentlemen, we have a triple check! I fail to see how am I misrepresenting the truth here”.  _

_ “You know that they won’t think that! If you send them that they will assume that— They will think that we—” _

_ Crowley has the smartphone in a hand, a glass of wine in the other. That, next to Ezra’s white jumper, will prove itself to be an accident in the making in mere seconds. An accident that Ezra will have only to vaguely battle his eyelashes to to get Crowley try his hardest to solve.  _

_ “Now, what will they exactly think?”  _

_ “Give me the mobile, Crowley!” _ )

Crowley smile falters. He drops the banter: “Doing something quite as reckless as inviting potential robbers of those books into your bookshop, now, I wouldn’t have pinpointed you as someone who’d do that”. 

He sees out of the corner of his eye how Ezra ducks his head and looks out of the window. “I was supposed to get help”. 

Ah, yes. Crowley remembers the girl of the library, the one who has played Ezra’s partner in crime before snitching on him to the gang. The one Ezra hadn't imagined betraying him because he wouldn’t be capable of doing something like that to someone else, so why would her do it to him. He changes gears, keeps his eyes on the road and answers, as if in an afterthought:  “Next time you plan on turning yourself and your books into bait, maybe— well, if you need a backup, a  _ proper _ backup, just ask me”. 

He _feels_ more than sees Ezra’s eyes snapping back at him, and that’s more than anything out of the flush that creeps over his neck. He feels his palms sweaty, his heart beating wildly.  He preemptively puts up his shields, thinks a myriad of variants of ‘ _I only say it so you don’t make a fool out of yourself_ ’ and is only halfway dissapointed when Ezra changes tracks to ask: “How did you find out about the strike?” 

Crowley opens his mouth, thinks about explaining how Lucius had told him in no uncertain terms to follow the gang if he wanted to keep the job. He thinks about what Ezra would tell him if he mentioned the Inferno gardening shop and its shady backroom deals altogether. He shuts his mouth. 

Ezra, who can read him back to back, doesn’t even need him to put it into words. He jumps to the worse conclusion, though: “Did he... order it?” 

_Wait, what_?

“No. He— I heard them talk about you, okay? He—”, Crowley sighs, “Okay, he told me to follow them. That’s when I heard them talking about this library, this old and weird ass librarian, and the blondie, fussy young man who helped her and, well. I pieced things together and then...” 

“And you decided to come to my rescue”. 

Crowley risks a quick look over. Ezra looks… kind of amused. He doesn’t know what to make out of it. His gut reaction is to tone down the statement: it’s not as if he suddenly has turned into some sort of knight in shining armour. Or that he deserves to be praised like one.

In the end, he doesn’t say anything, mainly because a hand chooses that exact momento to gently squeeze his arm, and that stops altogether his train of thought. 

“You can stop wherever you can. It’s over there”, Ezra explains, pinpointing the same large block of buildings in front of which he dropped Anathema a couple of weeks before. Crowley parks, not too far away. He hopes that Ezra will invite him over. Maybe make a big show of how irresponsible is to let a drive drive that late, perhaps chide at his reckless ignorance of road manners. Something that lets him a teeny, tiny opportunity not to have to say goodbye. 

“Well, thank you for—” 

He rolls his eyes. 

“ _ Ezra _ ”. 

“But I’m grateful for what you’ve done! It was... nice seeing you again”. 

It’s the wild, blind hope in his chest what makes him take a deep breath, braze himself for the impact and say:  “You know, Hamlet. There’s ah— They’re doing Hamlet. The guys in— Shit, well, I mean”, he backpedals. Starts again, trying to say it so it makes sense.  _ Subject, verb, complements. Come on, you can do it! _ “The new community theatre downtown? Some friends of mine are doing Hamlet there. They’re not— Oscar worthy, or anything, but they’re also not rubbish. And there’s a bar near, they make some pretty mean pizzas. Italian authentic recipe, all artsy. We could—”. 

“I can’t”. 

Crowley clasps his mouth shut. 

“Right”. 

He blinks a few times, keeps his eyes away, tries to will the sharp sting away. 

“Crowley, I’m not ashamed of you. I just— I can’t, okay?” 

Ezra squeezes his hand for a moment. 

Crowley  _ won’t _ cry. 

“Okay, angel”, he manages. 

Ezra grabs his bag and gets out of the car. He doesn’t manage to move until he sees him disappear through the entrance hall. 

It doesn’t happen that night. Nor the morning after. He’s got to wait up until the afternoon shift at the Inferno for Bee to call him to the back room and hand him the shop’s phone. It’s humid in the backroom, it clings to his clothes. It almost chokes him when he hears a sweet, deep voice tell him: “You’ve got guts to show up, that I have to admit it. I’ve seen you worse for wear, though. Is that how you pay your shots now, scuffles?”

(“ _ My brother is— _ ”

“ _ An idiot? A petty bastard who didn’t outgrow the bully phase? _ ”) 

“I wouldn’t stick around if I were you, our parents don’t take to too gently to your  _ kind _ . Neither do I, if we’re being honest. If you want to ruin your life, that’s your problem. But the last thing we need is you dragging Ezra down with you. Specially, after what he did to get you back to school”. 

Ba-dum- _ thud.  _ His heart skips a beat. 

“I’m going to take your little chat from last night as an aberration to the rule, but needless to say, I don’t want you to go near him ever again. Or else, there will be consequences. And you know for experience that I do follow up my words”. A pause. “Do we have an arrangement?” 

Ire cloughs his throat. He’s got the phone in a death grip. 

“I’m going to take that as a yes. Have a nice day, Crawley”.

He hangs up. 

Crowley waits one tone, two tones, before his body reacts and he stomps the phone on the receiver wishing that it was not a phone, but a certain someone’s face. Bee refrains mid-sentence to tell him how he’s going to have to pay it if he breaks. 

He paces back to the front of the shop, feeling disgusted with himself, and only partially because after being at the back room he’s pooling in sweat. His mind is lost to the present, racing through images of him burning with rage at the hospital, screaming at Ezra to fuck off, to images of him burning with rage at the police station, being questioned, to images of him burning with rage at the director’s office, being told with a stern voice and pitiful eyes that even if Crowley will not be expelled for the incident, if he continued down this road, it’d probably cost him way more than his academic possibilities and he knows that . He knows there’s a missing piece in there, somewhere, though he cannot for the love of Someone pinpoint where is it. There’s the familiar weight of guilt in his stomach and a question which echoes through his brain.

_ What the fuck did he do? _

**Author's Note:**

> This is the longest fic I’ve ever written, words cannot contain how happy I am that I’ve managed to finish it. 
> 
> I wrote this after binge watching Elite, so if you’ve watched it, I’m sure you can pinpoint some vague inspiration. 
> 
> Also yes, yes. Elite and Hozier’s Work song were probably my two main sources of inspiration. 
> 
> Stay safe during quarantine and wash your damn hands :P
> 
> My tumblr is giurochedadomani.tumblr.com
> 
> Come say hi! :)


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